The Customer – CocaCola HBC
Coca Cola HBC are global soft drinks manufacturer, with productions facilities worldwide. The customer produces local, regional, and international brands of well known and loved soft drinks.
This production line is based in Prague, Czech Republic. Having already had Secomak Drying Machines installed at other sites around the world, the customer had the experience and confidence to trust Secomak’s equipment and support to meet their demanding expectations.
The Challenge
The biggest challenge at this customer site was space! During a recent line upgrade, Coca Cola took the opportunity to improve their can drying and updated to Secomak’s latest Technology. However, the flag ship dryer DryGuide™ did not fit, so our engineering team had to think out of the box come up with a dedicated solution.
Evolution in can technology has resulted in far lighter materials. The process is called “lightweighting” and allows reductions on raw materials, transportation costs and our impact on the environment. This means that a 330 ml can from 60 years ago could weigh more than 80 g, but today typically weighs only 13 g!
However, this increases the possibility of stress corrosion around the laser-cut ring pull on the top of the can. A completely dry can surface eliminates this risk, and the customer was keen to proactively prevent this from occurring on their line..
The Solution
Our solution was to provide a completely bespoke piece of equipment that could be installed on two height levels, whilst still providing the Secomak quality guarantee.
On the initial site visit, we were shown the area the drying equipment needed to be installed. As there was a twist upstream and inkjet coder dating the cans inverted, and a new packaging machine downstream with little open conveyor space. We were forced to think outside the box.
Our Engineers designed our trademark DryGuide™ fixtures to be installed on a skeleton type frame, small enough to fit between two tightly spaced high speed conveyor sections. Our powerful 15kW blowers were placed in acoustic enclosures on the mezzanine of the factory, with flexible and fixed ducting installed through a precision cutout in the mezzanine floor. This pipework fed into two drying modules, can top, and can side walls. Additionally, we provided our full EcoPack control panel, wall mounted close to the line. This allowed our customer to control the speed of our blowers, contributing to the efficiency of their production.
As different can sizes are used on the same production line, a quick to adjust drying solution was key. The DryGuide™ technology makes this effortless, while retaining performance and efficiency. The can sizes the machine needed to service included:
- 330ml
- 440 ml
- 500 ml
- 568 ml
Once back in the UK our sales team were presented with test results from the customers laboratory, with amazing results. Pre installation of the Secomak dryers, when the customer was using an alternative brand, remaining moisture on the can top was as high as 97.75mg. Now with our solution installed, the customer has results of 0.25mg of moisture remaining! Amazing!
Obviously, we were not only drying the can tops, but also the side walls. The results back on the sides read as follows:
Pre Secomak 305.50mg
Post Secomak 3.88mg
Amazing results again, but this was to be expected by our team.
Supplying multinational organisations around the world, Secomak has equipped brands such as ABInBev, Coca-Cola, Carlsberg, Pepsi and Magners with drying solutions for over 40 years. This expertise has driven development of the DryGuide and made us experts in custom solutions for the food & beverage industry.
The Benefitss
Utilising revolutionary DryGuide™ Technology, the drying fixture is integrated into the guidance system, permanently fixing it into the optimum position for unrivalled drying performance and efficiency. The top of the can, and side walls are completely dried, allowing high speed packaging to run effortlessly, whilst preventing stress corrosion on the can top. This helps keep the can strong, minimising the chance of product leakage, and keeping it resilient for transportation.
The DryGuide™ fixtures installed boasts set positions and quick changes between can sizes, with no tools required, eliminating operator error and minimising disruption to the production line during product changeover.
The customer’s production line runs at 48,000 cans p/hr, well within the limits. This allows the line to increase speeds up to 90,000 cans p/hr in future without upgrading the drying or needing any additional spend.
Ask us to find out how the Secomak DryGuide can help with your rinsing or drying application for cans, bottles, or jars.
Technical Specification
